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by Ifham Nizam
Sri Lanka born Dr. Lahiru Wijedasa, a senior research fellow at National University of Singapore’s (NUS) tropical peatland research programme, was recently appointed by conservation group BirdLife International as its Asia forest coordinator.The move marks Wijedasa’s first foray into civil society after a career in scientific research, specializing in botany and ecology.His new role will involve working with partners on forest conservation projects across Asia. One of his first projects is in ecosystem restoration, working with Burung Indonesia, an Indonesian bird conservation group, and British charity Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, to conserve the lowland forests of Sumatra, Indonesia.At NUS, Wijedasa worked in forest restoration research, with a focus on peatland swamps. In January, he co-published a paper on a new species of flowering tree found in a peat swamp in Sumatra.
Excerpts of the interview with Dr. Wijedasa.Firstly, on your appointment by conservation group BirdLife International as Asia forest coordinator. Surely you are the first Sri Lankan isn’t it?
I think yes, I am the first Sri Lankan in this role, but not the first or most important one in BirdLife. BirdLife International is a unique kind of international NGO. While there is a broad international team, we only work on the ground by supporting a country partner who is established and working on conservation issues.
In Sri Lanka, the Field Ornithology Group (FOG) is the BirdLife partner, and they are actually the stars who have always been doing the hard work of actual conservation. I am merely a little fruit fly on their shoulder. As BirdLife partners have links with each other, FOG and Sri Lanka has always played a big role in conservation across the world.
Would you mind elaborating on your role?As mentioned, BL works with local partners. My role is to work closely and support partners in their work, through linking them up to funders and securing funding, working closely with them to develop new projects and in some cases provide technical expertise.Can you tell us a litle bit about your role as a senior arborist for the Singapore Botanic Gardens and your contribution there?
It was enjoyable and life changing to spend the first 10 years of my career at the Botanic Gardens where I was in charge of managing all the trees in the garden with my team. This involved hands on work managing all aspects of trees from climbing, pruning, fertilizing and planting.
The gardens include trees over 150 years old as well as new ones, each with different needs. For the old trees, I was involved in nominating many of them for Heritage tree status. We eventually wrote a book about the heritage trees which was launched by the president.
My work also included creating new collections in the gardens, with one of my most important contributions overseeing the development of a five Ha medicinal garden with over 500 species of plants called the Healing Garden.
I also participated in preparing the garden’s UNESCO heritage status bid which it received in 2015, as well the early work on new collections that have been built since I left, such as the Fragrant Garden, the Foliage Garden and the Tyersall Learning Forest.
But the most rewarding work was with organizations around Southeast Asia surveying forests and collecting seeds of rare trees to protect and grow outside of forests. It was during this time that I did a Master’s in plant taxonomy at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, leading me to find and describe new species.
It made me realize that while describing new species and saving them in gardens is important, we really were in a deforestation and extinction crisis. Sometimes we would be working in one part of a forest, while we can hear chainsaws working at the other end. It led to me eventually leaving the Gardens to study the problem and find solutions as a PhD student and consultant across Southeast Asia culminating in my current role in BL.
Your thoughts on permaculture and acquisition of two former tea estates in Sri Lanka?
Personally, I think Sri Lanka has been practicing permaculture from generations ago. When our forests were converted to home gardens, it meant that forests were replaced by a forest like habitat; while these new forests are less species diverse, they still host species in adjacent forests. Deer, pangolins, porcupines, leopards and the many species of endemic birds are a good example. This could even be considered the case for our elephants.Most of my family history has been in different areas of agriculture in the Kotmale Valley. Back when the Kotmale dam was built and flooded the valley, most of the family was displaced. They eventually scattered across the country and then different parts of the world.
I decided in 2016 to go back to Kotmale and with my family we setup Conservation Links. We bought two small tea plantations, inter-planted other crops and started doing organic agriculture and agro-forestry. We started by collecting vegetable waste from villages and towns which was composted and applied as fertilizer.
We continue this for three years, until it was no longer financially viable. Today, we apply a limited quantity of fertilizers and no pesticides. This hands-on experience over time has shaped our own understanding of organic farming. It is definitely viable on a small scale and can play a role in food security at the local level
You are also an authority on carbon credits, in your opinion what are the biggest stumbling blocks in Sri Lanka?This is a tough question, as I am not very familiar with the Sri Lankan situation. Rather than stumbling blocks, there are many positive things which maybe more important. Firstly, a large proportion of our population is already environmentally aware. They know of the issues and would like to do what they can to help solve them. Second, we do have a decent national regulatory network that could allow land zoning for carbon projects to work – note that land allocation for carbon is an important part of getting a carbon credit.
On the note of land, such areas could be reservoir reserves, steep slopes, riparian buffers, watersheds, road reserves and many other lands already zoned for non-use purposes. Third, we are a farming nation, so we know how to grow trees and forests, so we can get it done.Sri Lanka is one of the biodiversity hotspot along Western Ghats Are you happy with the initiatives taken here to preserve fauna and flora?We should be really proud of our achievements in the past till this day. Yes, there have been issues, and our rain forest areas are fragmented, but we have really done well. However, the question is whether our biodiversity survives climate change? This needs a concerted long term study. We should provide the resources for our scientists to do this and associate this with action on the ground to address the problem based on facts. We have the scientists, institutions, botanic gardens, public and will to do it.Who inspired you the most?I have been very lucky to have some important scientists and colleagues such as Prof Theodore Evans (ecology/termites), the late Tony Whitten (conservation), Rick Thomas (tree climbing/arboriculture) as mentors along the way and a family that has supported my eccentric habits.However, the most inspiring example is my grandmother. She grew up in a different world, I remember her telling me about the first car that ever came to the Kotmale valley. The flooding of the valley did change her life completely, but she remained strong and loving at all times. So much so, that when I was younger, I had this interest in snakes and when I found a dead snake on the road, I would bring it home, skin it, boil it and reassemble the skeletons. It was my grandmother who would keep the crows away when I was at school.
Despite not liking it, she did not stop me. She could easily have, and the path I would have taken could be something completely different. For someone of that generation to let me follow my instincts is something commendable.My advice to parents is to let your kids do their own thing, even if the world finds it weird. Don’t make them conform to the world of today, instead let them mould the world into what they want to make it.
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by Anoja Wijeyesekera
Bhante Kondanna who passed away in London on February 3, 2022 was a remarkable disciple of the Buddha, who communicated the message of the Enlightened One, to all who sought the truth, regardless of where they were located in the world. He travelled to every continent and communicated the message of the Buddha and taught people in Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, UK, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, USA, Canada, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina and Brazil, to practice meditation based on the Buddha’s Four Foundations of Mindfulness, the direct path to Enlightenment.
So profound was the impact of his teachings and the meditation retreats he conducted in all these countries, that his followers from every time zone of the world, participated via Zoom, in the Pansakula ceremony held at the Kavijada Meditation Centre in Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, on February 6. They joined this event to honour their respected teacher, even though for some of them it was in the middle of the night.
His followers from Argentina and Canada spoke of their profound sadness at the demise of Bhante Kondanna whom they considered to be their “father, brother and friend.” He predicted his own death and travelled to the UK, his second home, where he died suddenly and peacefully at the Atuladassana International Buddhist Vihara, Heathrow. With no apparent illness and no cause for hospitalisation, he died exactly as he would have liked, with Ven Kassapa in attendance. A simple cremation would be held in London, in keeping with his wishes.
Bhante Kondanna devoted his entire life as a monk to the service of others and had a unique ability to transcend boundaries and empathise with anyone at a human level of compassion and understanding. He reached out to those who sought his advice and gave them the strength to transcend the vicissitudes of life, the inevitable condition of human existence. The Eight Vicissitudes of Life are praise-blame, fame-ill-fame, gain-loss, happiness-sorrow, which the Buddha identified as imposters to be confronted with equanimity.
Born in 1939, to a large family from Homagama, Sri Lanka, he had his education at Royal College, Colombo, and completed his higher education in the UK. After graduating as a Mechanical Engineer, he specialised in automotive engineering, which enabled him to pursue a lucrative career with Rolls-Royce, the prestigious car and aero engine manufacturer in the UK. With the experience thus gained, he ventured into his own car business in West Hampstead, London.
As a successful businessman in London, and known to his friends by his first name, Don, he dined at the top restaurants, wore the best Saville Row suits and drove around in a Bentley, living what most people would consider the perfect life. However, he began to see the hollowness beneath the glittering veneer of wealth and material comforts. His eyes opened to the reality of the human condition, namely, “jathi, jara, vyada and marana” (birth, old age, sickness and death) which made him completely disenchanted with his worldly life.
He was on the brink of signing a lucrative business deal which had the potential to make him enormously wealthy, when he withdrew from it all. He decided to renounce the lay life completely in 1978, and ordained as a Buddhist monk, under Ven. Dr. Hammalwa Saddhatissa Thera, the Head of the London Buddhist vihara.
At his ordination ceremony, he was given the name “Kondanna” by Ven. Sadhatissa Thero, who may have been influenced by the significance of this name in Buddhist history. Kondanna was one of the Five Ascetics to whom the Buddha preached his first sermon, the Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta, 2,600 years ago. After hearing the Buddha’s words, Kondanna attained the first stage of sainthood, sotapanna.
Bhante Homagama Kondanna obtained his higher ordination after two and a half years of study and practice, under the guidance of both Ven. Sadhatissa and Ajahn Sumedo, the Chief Abbot of Amaravati. He then proceeded to develop his meditation practice in Thailand and became a disciple of Ajahn Chah, the renowned Meditation Master. Bhante Kondanna spent more than two years in full time meditation at Ajahn Chah’s monastery namely, Wat Nong Pah Pong, in Ubon province located in the jungles of North-eastern Thailand. It was a centre that attracted many western students some of whom graduated to become Chief Abbots of Buddhist monasteries in Western countries.
At Ajahn Chah’s monastery, which followed the Forest Tradition, living conditions were extremely spartan. The one meal they consumed each day was obtained through pindapatha, (alms round of mendicants). It meant trekking through jungles to reach the little hamlets of poor peasants, who eked out a living through their land. Pindapatha being a well-established tradition in Thailand, people regarded it as a great blessing to make offerings to the monks who came on their alms round.
For the disciples of Ajahn Chah this was a daily exercise in the practice of humility and gratitude. They learned to appreciate the most basic of food, to eat only for survival, to give up indulging in taste and to transcend the pangs of hunger, till the next meal, 24 hours later. Bhante Kondanna continued this practice of having only one meal a day throughout his life.
Ajahn Chah’s guidance and unique teachings enabled his students to progress on the path. Many were the methods the master used to tear down the ego and self-view that is the most difficult defilement to overcome. The methodology adopted was one of self-realisation through direct experience and meditative insight, rather than book learning.
While Bhante Kondanna was into his second year at Ubon, Ven Saddhatissa of London, was given the task of finding an abbot for the Kavidaja Meditation centre in Moratuwa,
Sri Lanka. He thought that Bhante Kondanna would be the ideal candidate. So, in consultation with Ajahn Chah, Bhante Kondanna was requested to return by Ven Sadhatissa Thero. Unable to refuse the request of his teacher and mentor, Bhante Kondanna returned to Sri Lanka and was appointed as the Chief Abbot of the Kavidaja Meditation Centre.
From then on, Bhante Kondanna devoted his entire life for the welfare and happiness of the many, as the Buddha asked his disciples to do. He dedicated his life to the teaching of meditation both Samatha (Tranquility) and Vipassana (Insight). In Sri Lanka he conducted regular meditation retreats both in his own temple as well as at the Knuckles Mediation Centre, which he founded and at several other locations. One of his pupils, Prof. Rajah de Alwis, Professor of Civil Engineering at the Moratuwa University who followed his meditation classes at the YMBA Dehiwala, himself became a meditation teacher and introduced meditation to his engineering students, giving them a head-start in life.
Bhante Kondanna started an English Dhamma school at his temple in Moratuwa for children attending international schools. This has proved to be a great success as the 200 or more children who attend the school are also given a good grounding in meditation practice. Many of the teachers who provide voluntary services are professionals from many walks of life who are excellent in their English, dhamma knowledge as well as meditation.
Bhante Kondanna has also been the spiritual advisor of Seva Lanka Foundation, a charity that assisted poor rural communities of Sri Lanka. He was closely associated with the German Dharmaduta Society and was their anusasaka (spiritual guide) Bhante was also a regular speaker at the Maitriya Hall, Bambalapitiya, the Headquarters of the Servants of the Buddha, where he conducted meditation classes. He participated in their Centenary Celebrations in April 2021.
From the very outset, Bhante Kondanna received invitations from various parts of the world to conduct meditation retreats. This entailed travel to all parts of the world and long periods of stay outside Sri Lanka. At his pansakula ceremony it was mentioned that he spent approximately 50 years of his life outside Sri Lanka.
His easy-going manner, command of the English language, his sense of humour and simplicity enabled him to reach out to people from all walks of life, all nationalities, all ethnic groups and scores of free-thinking people from the far corners of the world, who were looking for answers to the enigma of life. His popularity as a meditation teacher grew to the extent that he ended up conducting meditation programmes in the long list of countries listed at the beginning of this article.
In South America which was totally alien to Buddhism, he attracted a large following, so much so that he received invitations from most of the south American countries, year after year. His influence was so profound that two persons from Argentina even followed him to Sri Lanka to gain ordination as Buddhist monks, at the Kavidaja Meditation centre in Moratuwa. Later, one of them went to Thailand to continue his meditation practice and the other returned to Argentina.
Bhante Kondanna was a monk who practiced what he preached and preached what he practiced. His day began with meditation long before dawn, while the rest of the day was devoted to the service of others. He lived a life of extreme simplicity, that bordered on austerity. He ate only one meal a day. Very often he obtained this meal through pindapatha (alms round), which in addition to being an act of humility is a re-affirmation of a monk’s vows of being totally dependent on the generosity of others, and of giving up personal possessions and resources. He explained that anything that a person puts into the bowl, must be eaten with gratitude and humility. Pindapatha was a practice that was followed by the Buddha.
During the first lock-down and curfew, when Bhante Kondanna was on his alms round, the local police who were arresting curfew violators, stopped him and questioned him. He replied that he was on pindapatha. The police then begged for his forgiveness and helped him on his path.
Bhante Kondanna never stood on ceremony or sought titles or positions and shunned any form of elevation and publicity. He did not promote fanfare and rituals and asked his followers to practice what the Buddha prescribed, namely Dana, Seela and Bhavana, (Generosity, Virtue and Meditation). He expressed disappointment that many people in Sri Lanka, replace Bhavana (meditation) with “puda puja” rituals, which was not what the Buddha recommended.
In his meditation classes, in addition to the instructions on the path to liberation, he advised his students on how to transcend pain through mindfulness. A few years ago, in London, he tripped on a pavement and fractured his ankle. At the hospital, the doctors wanted to give him a local anaesthetic before carrying out the procedure to re-set his ankle. He refused the anaesthetic and told that doctors that he taught his students how to transcend pain through meditation and that he has to practice what he preaches. The doctors had been astounded. Bhante Kondanna also had teeth extractions without anaesthesia much to the surprise and consternation of his dentists!
As a meditation master and guide, Bhante Kondanna leaves a great vacuum in the lives of his followers across the world. However, he made sure that he trained and guided several Sri Lankan monks who were his disciples, to learn English, practice meditation and proceed to other countries to impart the Dhamma. Ven. Dhammakusala of the Berlin Temple in Germany and Ven. Soratha at the Buddhist temple in Canberra, Australia are disciples of Ven. Homagama Kondanna. Here in Sri Lanka, Ven. Thirikunamale Sobitha Thero who was a devout follower of Ven. Kondanna will take over at the Kavidaja Mediation Centre. The torch that was lit by Bhante Kondanna Maha Thero will be carried by them to encourage human beings to strive for Enlightenment through the direct path of meditation, as extolled by the Buddha.
I would like to conclude by quoting from an article written by Bhante Kondanna “Why meditate?” which he wrote for the Centenary Volume of Dhamma Gems, the Journal of the Servants of the Buddha, in 2021. He speaks directly to the reader as follows:
“Through meditation and quiet contemplation, you will realise that, with everything being impermanent and causing so much pain, there is really no control, no power vested in me, you, or us. Even though we think this is my body, and my mind, everything is subject to automatic processes such as ageing, falling ill and dying, and so do the habitual reactions based on perceptions of what one likes and dislikes. Through meditation you will gradually realise that to live means to experience everything that is happening through awareness. That awareness is all that there is. No person, no being, just an ever-changing body and an ever-changing thought process, both of which have come together temporarily in this birth, giving the illusion of a permanent self. Meditation will help one see that the true nature of the world and of oneself is impermanence, suffering and non-self. (anicca, dukkha and anatta)
Once you realise this you have experienced the blissful state of Enlightenment. You are free of passion, desires, aversion. A state of blissful peace that comes with contentment, of not wanting, of having no desires, of just being.
Therefore, my friends, I invite you to tread the path shown by the Buddha, which is to sit in quiet contemplation, and see the truth of the universe within the body and mind.
May you all achieve the blissful state of Nibbana.”
Likewise, may Bhante Kondanna, attain that same blissful state of Nibbana, that he encouraged and guided his followers to strive for, through his life of selfless service as a Buddhist monk.
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by Rajan Philips
The SLPP’s election fireworks in Anuradhapura may have perished instantly in the Sacred City’s ancient lakes. But political moves and counter moves are emerging independent and regardless of local government elections being held or not held in the near future. New developments are being reported both within the governing (SLPP/SLPFA) alliance and outside it, as well as independent of the government and on behalf of the government. There are four potentially significant developments that have been and are being reported in the media:
1) Shifting political alliances both within the governing alliance and among opposition parties.
2) An ‘all-party’ initiative in parliament to persuade the government to take steps for restructuring debt payments to tide over the country’s critical foreign exchange shortage.
3) The sudden and shocking return of White Vans in Colombo even as the government is trying to improve its human rights image in time for the March UNHRC sessions in Geneva, and while the Catholic Church is threatening to ‘go global’ in its search for justice for the victims of 2019 Easter Sunday bombings.
4) Foreign Minister GL Pieris’s unusually expansive interview to The Indian Express, during his recent visit to India, and his exclusive interview with S. Venkat Narayan, Sunday Island’s Special Correspondent in New Delhi.
Shifting Political Alliances
On Thursday, February 17, the Daily Mirror reported what would appear to be very consequential shifts occurring within the political alliances that underpin the current composition of MPs in parliament. According to the Daily Mirror, twelve of the political parties who are now part of the SLPP/SLPFA alliance and all of whom were left out of the of SLPPs’ family rally in Anuradhapura, are expected to announce in early March the formation of a new alliance, while remaining part of the SLPP-led government.
The leading lights of the new alliance will be Ministers Wimal Weerawansa, Udaya Gammanpila and Vasudeva Nanayakkara, as well as the Chairmen of the three crucial parliamentary committees – Tissa Vitarana (Committee on Public Accounts – COPA), Charitha Hearth (Committee on Public Expenditure – COPE) and Anura Priyadarshana Yapa (Committee on Public Finance – COPF). The new alliance is expected to include a few SLFPers as well, two of whom are also committee chairs.
What will the group’s ministerial troika (Wimal/Gamanpila/Vasu) do? Will they quit cabinet, or stay on as ministers until the President shows them the door? Giving up their cabinet positions may mitigate their political culpability until now, while getting fired will not improve their already tarnished political credibility for the future.
The formation of this alliance will not result in the government losing its current parliamentary majority, but it could take away the government’s two-thirds majority which will be required to effect constitutional changes. The President and the SLPP could just ignore the group, forego the craving for two-thirds majority, and give up on going ahead with constitutional changes. That in itself will be a positive outcome for the country. The country will be spared the agony of going through an ‘organic’ constitution after the disaster over organic fertilizer!
The new alliance could also bring pressure on the President and the government to undertake basic remedial measures that are desperately needed to tide over the country’s current financial and food crises. But there is nothing automatic about the effectiveness of this group in influencing policy or changing government direction. And its effectiveness will be limited unless the group is prepared to work with opposition MPs and parties, as well as more constructive SLPP MPs, on specific issues that are now critical to the country.
Principled cross-floor collaboration can serve two purposes. One, acting as the legislative branch of government, parliament could take independent positions on critical issues to countermand mistaken presidential actions and provide alternative routes for the country’s government. As a consequence of this, parliament can establish its constitutional role in the presidential system without being a mere rubber stamp to the president.
Many have commented on President (G) Rajapaksa’s rootlessness in political parties as a source of weakness for his presidency. Conversely, it could be argued that the deep rootedness of previous presidents in their parties (except Sirisena, who was neither here nor there as President) was a source of weakness for the legislative branch. Shouldn’t parliament use the present opportunity to restore its constitutional role and function?
The Daily Mirror news story also reveals shifting alliances within the opposition in parliament. Of special note are reported discussions involving Champika Ranawaka, UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and parliamentarian Kumara Welgama. A coming together of upstart ambition and decadent frustrations, to paraphrase the inimitable turn of phrase of Doric de Souza! Where and how far this convergence will carry, it is not worth a second of speculation. What is pertinent is that Champika’s overtures to Ranil are reportedly the result of Sajith Premadasa’s failure to respond to Mr. Ranawaka’s request for deputy leadership in the SJB.
Mr. Ranawaka apparently is not the only one feeling unrequited in the SJB. “Minority parties” affiliated with the SJB are also reportedly disappointed that Mr. Premadasa is not heeding their calls for formalizing a broad alliance where ‘minority parties’ can maintain their identities. If Sajith Premadasa is reluctant to go into broad alliances, it may be due to his own insecurity and there are also reports about other prominent and young UNP-defectors who too are not very pleased with the leadership and the insulated inner circles of Premadasa the Younger. But I am trying to get to a different point here.
And that is about what seems to be a shared reluctance among Gotabaya/Basil Rajapaksa (SLPP), Sajith Premadasa (SJB) and Anura Kumara Dissanayake (JVP/NPP) to enter broad alliances with other parties. The reluctance might be due to different reasons – arrogance and not having to answer to anyone (Gotabaya/Basil), insecurity (Sajith), and – call it – progressive puritanism (JVP/NPP). But the effect of this shared reluctance would be a major shift in post-presidential electoral politics that needs to be watched as the electoral dynamic unfolds over the next three years. The past alliance champions – Mahinda Rajapaksa, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Maithripala Sirisena are now spent forces with little consequence.
National Unity over National Debt
There is nothing more serious than the national debt burden, and its aggravation of foreign exchange shortages and import capacity limitations. There have been suggestions for negotiating debt payments and calling on the IMF for help. But the government and the Central Bank have done nothing about either suggestion. In the absence of government action, a group of government and opposition MPs have been putting their heads together to urge the government to act promptly on negotiating with the country’s creditors and for approaching the IMF.
TNA’s MA Sumanthiran has been the convenor of these discussions, the second of which was attended by R Sampanthan (TNA), Sajith Premadasa, Dr Harsha de Silva and Eran Wickremaratne (SJB), Rauf Hakim (SLMC), Mano Ganesan (TPA), , Shanakiyan Rasamanikam (TNA), and from the ‘government side’ Charitha Herath (COPE Chair), Tissa Vitarana (COPA Chair) and Anura Priyadarshana Yapa (COPF Chair). Former Speaker Karu Jayasuriya attended the second meeting. The first meeting was also attended by Ranil Wickremesinghe and Kabir Hashim (UNP), and Dr Harini Amarasuriya (JVP/NPP).
As reported in the Sunday Island last week, Mr. Sumanthiran has indicated there is agreement in the group that the government should commence renegotiating with creditors before running out of existing foreign reserves and reschedule loan settlements. The group recognized renegotiation as a multi-step process, which could be guided by the experiences of other countries such as Argentina and Uruguay. The purpose of debt negotiations would be to ensure the continuous flow of essential goods and the continued protection of the poor and vulnerable social groups.
Again, there is no indication how far this initiative will go. But this is an instance and an opportunity for parliament to assert itself and literally compensate for the lack of political will on the part of the President and the Minister of Finance. There is another angle to this initiative given the convenor-role of Sumanthiran. It underpins the unifying role of national debt and everything ‘economic’. It also speaks to Mr. Sumanthiran’s role as a parliamentarian and a constitutional lawyer, and his abilities to work across party lines and ethnic boundaries on matters that are of importance to all Sri Lankans. I cannot think of a Tamil parliamentarian before him who would have played such a national role so well while being inflexibly principled on matters affecting the rights and expectations of Tamils as Sri Lankan citizens.
White Vans Return
The most shocking development last week was the return of White Vans after nearly seven years. In the first reported instance, goons in a white van attacked the house of TV journalist Chamuditha Samarawickrema with rocks and faeces and drove away with impunity. In the second instance, Catholic civic activist Shehan Malaka Gamage was arrested and taken way by CID men who too had arrived in a white van. Gamage managed to livestream the arrest on Facebook, calling it abduction, and the publicity forced the CID to produce him in court where the Magistrate released him om bail.
Gamage’s arrest stirred the ire of Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, who endorsed Gamage’s description that what was done to him was abduction. The Cardinal went on to call it “an uncivilised, thuggish act that should have no place in a democracy.” The Cardinal lambasted the Attorney General who authorized the ‘arrest,’ reminding him that the country’s Attorney General is “a public servant and not a tool of politicians.” According to media reports, the Cardinal also condemned the attack on the residence of journalist Chamuditha Samarawickrama, and “expressed his disbelief that the government would resort to such tactics with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session just days away.”
It is not only the UNHRC that the government will have to worry about for this year’s month of March. Cardinal Ranjith has put the government on notice that Sri Lanka’s Catholic Church is working with the Vatican to help find justice for the victims of the 2019 Easter bombings. The outspoken Cardinal has said that “if we cannot find a solution within the country, we will try going through international organizations.” And that “the government alone must take responsibility for that, because it is the government that has not paid an iota of attention to this.”
The return of the White Van a week after the release of Human Rights and Constitutional Lawyer Hejaaz Hizbullah might suggest that the SLPP operatives in the government do not know what they are doing. More sinisterly, the family, the SLPP and the government might be switching sides as they struggle to contain the continuing fallout from the Easter bombings. First they promised retributive justice to Catholics at the expense of the Muslims. Now the SLPP government might be trying to woo the Muslims and abandon the Catholics.
Playing one group against another never works and it always backfires. That has been the story of the entire Rajapaksa power trajectory – its slow rise, sudden peak and the rapid decline. Power not only corrupts and corrupts absolutely, but also comforts the futility of learning nothing and forgetting everything. Of all people, Prof. GL Pieris, easily the most erudite person to be in any Rajapaksa cabinet, gave a demonstration of this during his recent (February 6-8) visit to India.
India – a tried and examined pal
Foreign Minister GL Peiris visited his Indian counterpart Subramanyam Jaishankar in the first week of February. At the end of his visit, the Minister gave an interview to the Indian Express and to the Sunday Island’s Special Correspondent in New Delhi. The latter interview appeared in the Sunday Island last week – in the paper’s print and electronic editions but did not make the cut to the trendy online version. In the Sunday Island interview, Minister Pieris indicated that he had a better understanding of what the people of Jaffna need after spending three days in the peninsula, than any Tamil MP who, according to Pieris, is usually preoccupied with war crimes, which the Minister did not make it a point to deny as he usually does.
The key takeaway from the Sunday Island interview is his refutation of the claim (attributed to ex-Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran) that the proposed new constitution will remove the 13th Amendment and “convert Sri Lanka into a Unitary State instead of a Federal State.” The Minister called the assertion “irresponsible speculation” while not bothering to clarify to the Indian journalist that Sri Lanka is a constitutionally stipulated unitary state. He went on imply the need for patience till the Experts Committee releases its much awaited draft without indulging in “surmises and conjectures.”
In his Indian Express interview (which seems poorly transcribed and was reproduced in the Daily Mirror on February 14), the Minister was categorical that “the 13th Amendment is an integral a part of Sri Lanka’s Constitution of 1978.” Its “primary characteristic,” Pieris said “is a division of powers between the central authorities and the provincial councils.” He rightfully blamed the current suspension of the Provincial Council system on the previous government and the TNA for indefinitely postponing all provincial council elections through legislative inaction by parliament.
Quite apart from the 13th Amendment and Provincial Councils, the Indian Express interview is remarkable for its unusual expansiveness and its glowing allusions to the historical and currently “strategic” linkages between India and its “utmost isle” (Milton), including a potential “financial integration” of the two countries. The Minister described India as “a tried and examined pal that’s all the time there for us.” While admitting to the apparent competitiveness in Sri Lanka’s dealings with India and China, the Minister asserted that “there’s something very particular about Sri Lanka’s relationship with India … a particular high quality about it,” and deemed it “inconceivable that Sri Lanka would (have) allow(ed) our nation for use in opposition to India.”
The Minister identified different economic sectors as underpinning the evolving “strategic relationship” with India. They include ports and harbours, electrical energy, petroleum, tourism, prescription drugs, and of course all the financial credit help which sets up for the “integration of the financial system of India and Sri Lanka” for mutual benefits. If Ranil Wickremasinghe had said half as much, he would have been tattooed and crucified no sooner than he got off the plane at Katunayake. But Pieris may have the Teflon touch as a Rajapaksa Minister.
It could also be that whatever Minister Pieris says in India may be of little consequence for the President or the Prime Minister in Sr Lanka. But that is hardly the way for the government of Sri Lanka to manage its relationship with India. It can get counterproductive when it is apparent that the Sri Lankan government, or Minister Pieris on his own, is trying get New Delhi’s help to deal with UNHRC in Geneva. Besides the UNHRC, there is the EU, and now the Vatican and the whole Holy Catholic See to deal with. Connecting all the external dots internally is the return of the White Van to violate the streets and homes in Colombo. Either the government is inexplicably dumb, or it is assuming that it is cleverer than everyone else in dealing with human rights.
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by Charitha P. de Silva
1982 was an historic year for Aitken Spence. It was the year that we went public. Earlier in the years I had received a lot of prominence as a result of my photo appearing on the cover of “Asian Business,” a Hongkong-based magazine. I had been invited to deliver a lecture in Hongkong on “How a Traditional Agency House was converted into a Conglomerate”.
The business tycoon Upali Wijewardena had also been invited to speak at the same forum. Unfortunately, he and a small group of his key men went down in the Malacca Straits in his private Lear Jet. There was a lot of speculation that the accident had been engineered in some way. The upshot of this unfortunate accident was that the meeting in Hongkong was canceled.
It was with some misgivings that I promoted the idea of our going public. There were undoubted tax and financial advantages in going public. However, we would lose our privacy and some of our freedom and the feeling of being a close-knit family. In balance, it was a good move and well timed because we had grown to be one of the three biggest conglomerates in the country – the other two being John Keells and Hayleys who were friendly rivals. They were already public companies.
I consulted my good friend M.T.L. Fernando, senior partner of Ernst & Young (a leading firm of auditors) and he looked at our accounts and thought that we should revalue our assets (which had not been done for many years) and have a three for one bonus share issue to existing shareholders before we offered our shares to the public. During the 10 years that I had been Chairman any shares that became available had not been appropriated by the directors. At my urging they were distributed at par to senior executives on a paternalistic basis.
We – Michael (Mack), Norman (Gunawardene), GC (Wickremasinghe) and I – decided who would get the shares and how many each would get. That itself was a generous action because we were a private company and had every right to appropriate the shares ourselves. There was nobody to question us.
Looking back I realize that I must have exercised considerable moral authority over my senior co-directors because they never once demurred at my proposals which involved sacrifice on the part of all of them.
The most extraordinary suggestion I made was when we were planning the Bonus Issue. It struck me that the junior directors, Stanley Wickremaratne, Ratna Sivaratnam and Lal Karunanayake had much fewer shares than the senior directors. I therefore suggested that we should sell them one tenth of our shares before the Bonus Issue. And what was unbelievable was that I suggested that we sell them at par! This was the very antithesis of Insider Dealing. Here was I suggesting that we give them a huge gift before a Bonus Issue! What is incredible is that not one of my senior co-directors protested or demurred! I remember Walter Wimalachandra telling me later that he was thrilled to see, in my actions, the finest principles of Buddhism being implemented.
I had a major decision to make myself. As a private company with a special set of Articles of Association we had a special class of shares called Management Shares. Each Management Share carried a hundred times the voting strength of an Ordinary Share. It thus gave total control of the Company to the holders of Management Shares. This would have been a device that the British owners had adopted to protect themselves. It happened that as a result of the departure of Roy Hinton and Eldsworth Van Langenburg and the death of Louis Samarawickrema, I was the holder of the largest number, by far, of Management Shares.
As they had the same dividend rights as an Ordinary Share and the question of votes had never arisen in the past I had never paid any attention to the fact that I had virtual control of the company. My style of control was based on my ability to persuade, and we had always made all our decisions on a consensual basis. I realised that if the voting rights of Management Shares were ever brought into play it would have been the end of the unity and camaraderie that I had built up over 10 years completely wiping out the memory of the attempted coup by Michael and Norman in 1972 when I was elected Chairman.
Now I was faced with the problem of how the Management Shares should be valued before we went public after which there would be only one class of shares – Ordinary Shares. It might easily have been argued that each Management Share was worth a hundred Ordinary Shares. Such a thought did not even strike me. I would have found it embarrassing. Looking back I cannot but realize that my attitude was positively saintly, and completely unbusiness like. Detractors would say that I was foolish – in the extreme! I decided that without any attempt to have the shares professionally valued I would place a value of eight times that of an Ordinary Share. There was no reaction from my co-directors. They may have secretly thought I was a little soft in the head.
The public Issue was a great success. At about this time LOLC also went public with Orix Corporation of Japan having 30% of the shareholding with the other large shareholders being Bank of Ceylon, National Development Bank, and Development Finance Corporation of Ceylon. Once again I gained no personal advantage from the fact that I was the first chairman of the company. My failure to look after myself can be judged from the fact that when I eventually retired in 2003 (21 years later) I owned less than 5% of the shares! This would sound incredibly foolish to any businessman. I can only attribute it to my abnormal lack of acquisitiveness, all part of my upbringing, and the example of my parents and brothers. This is my only excuse for depriving my children of the opportunity of inheriting great wealth.
Leasing became extremely popular, and a number of independent companies, finance companies and banks started leasing as a lucrative activity. What particularly attracted the banks was the fact that they could set off the depreciation on leased assets against their other income. The specialized leasing companies themselves did not have much other income against which they could set off their depreciation, so that they were in a permanent state of having taxable losses. They therefore did not pay any income tax which infuriated some tax officials who did not concern themselves with the thought that they paid large sums as Turnover Tax.
I saw the need for the leasing industry to protect itself from government action particularly in taxation. I therefore took the initiative in forming a Leasing Association. Quite naturally I was the Chairman and chief spokesman. All those involved in leasing became members. Thus there were representatives from banks in our membership, and our interests were not always congruent. I was not happy about the advantage that banks had with their ability to use depreciation (which could be set off against their other income) to make themselves more competitive.
Specialist leasing companies like ourselves were at a competitive disadvantage because we were dependent on banks for long-term funds, and we had no other income of any magnitude. I decided to do something about it. I made inquiries from the Asian Leasing Association that we had joined by that time, and discovered that Pakistan had introduced legislation that prohibited depreciation being set off against other income. Through Orix Pakistan I got the text of the legislation and wrote to our own Department of Inland Revenue strongly recommending it. It was seized on eagerly as an excellent source of revenue. The banks that had gone into leasing (like Hatton National Bank and the DFCC) were very upset, and Maxi Prelis (DFCC) and Rienzie Wijetilleke (HNB) wrote strong letters to Government attacking me and LOLC.
The Asian Leasing Association (ALA), headquartered in Singapore, had as its head, Mr Miyauchi, the CEO of ORIX Corporation that had created us and still had their representative, Mr Yoshio Ono as our Managing Director. Mr Miyauchi who had developed a healthy respect for me invited me on to their governing council.
LOLC had performed very creditably with A.F. Nizar as Ono’s deputy ever since its inception, doing much better than projected and expected. At this stage I came to the conclusion that we did not need a Japanese MD any longer. I felt that Nizar was ready to take over provided ORIX would agree to it. Under the original agreement with ORIX and the IFC (International Finance Corporation – a World Bank affiliate), ORIX which had 30% of our shares had the right to have their own MD.
When I sounded out the IFC director on our board, P.M. Mathew, he scoffed at the idea saying that Japan would never agree to it. ORIX had associate companies like us all over the world and in every one of them they had a Japanese as the MD. Ours was one of the youngest of these associate companies and it was most unlikely that they would change their worldwide policy for us. I had confidence in myself, and decided that I would broach the question with Miyauchi with whom I had an excellent relationship.
I did so on the next occasion that we met, and was not at all surprised when he agreed to my proposal that Nizar should take over from Ono when his term was over. He obviously had great confidence in my judgment, and the fact that I would be there as Chairman.
And there were obvious cost advantages to them in that they would save on Ono’s salary which would have been much, very much, more than Nizar’s. And so it came about that LOLC was the first associate company in the ORIX empire that did not have a Japanese as its MD.
Meanwhile at the ALA Miyauchi indicated that he wanted to retire. Among the other council members were representatives of South Korea, Taiwan, India, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Phillipines and the other important countries in Asia. Miyauchi wanted me to take over from him (I had been making a bigger contribution than the others at council deliberations) but thought it would be wiser not to rush it as it would appear to be nepotism and I was probably the most junior council member there. So Kenneth Lo of Taiwan was elected President. When Lo indicated that he could not go on for more than two years the Council unanimously decided that I would be President thereafter.
This was a great honour (indirectly) for Sri Lanka which was the newest and smallest country in the Association. It had of course more to do with my ability as a committee man than with Sri Lanka’s economic significance in Asia. In 1988, I took over as Chairman of the ALA and continued for two years which became the standard term.
In July, 1983, I was presiding as Chairman of the fifth Joint Committee Meeting of the Sri Lanka-Japan Business Co-operation Committee at the BMICH. Sejima was by my side, as Co-Chairman and we were approaching lunch time. Suneetha Jayawickrama who was joint Secretary-General came to me and whispered in my ear that Colombo appeared to be burning. The now infamous “July Riots” had broken out and smoke was visible on the skyline in the direction of Fort. We bundled our Japanese visitors into vehicles (I had Sejima in mine) and drove them to the Hilton Hotel.
I remember being stopped at the Bullers Road, Galle Road junction by bands of youth who were collecting petrol in cans for their deadly work. The meeting was aborted, but I will never forget how calm Sejima was. At a hastily summoned Press Conference he described the whole affair as “children’s fireworks”. Despite his effort to play it down, the violence in the streets made the climate for investment in this country unhealthy.
The pogrom that followed was the provocation for the formation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the warfare that was to plague the country until 2009 when President Mahinda Rajapakse succeeded in crushing the movement militarily.
(Extracted from the Memoirs of CP de Silva)
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We should get ready
